Jon West Horselogging

In the past few years there has been a resurgence of horse logging in the UK but a large proportion of this work has been low productivity harvesting, woodlands where environmental issues are the priority, amenity sites or areas where no one else will work. In these sort of operations the cost of harvesting is quite high and the value of the timber extracted doesn't usually cover the costs of the work. Also the volume of timber extracted per day can be low.

This I feel has led many foresters and woodland managers to dismiss the use of horses in the woods as being too expensive in normal harvesting situations.

In fact there are a lot of situations where horses can work very efficiently along side machinery at a competitive rate and at the same time increase productivity. Other situations could be in a parcel of timber where there are perhaps areas that the machines can't get to so the horse can be used to extract the timber to where the machines can reach it.

I'll try and describe some different ways that the horse can compliment mechanical harvesting but first I would like to say that I can't provide figures but only a little imagination is needed to see how it can all work and perhaps this page will give some food for thought to managers and timber contractors alike (as well as horseloggers who are perhaps trying to sell their wares to their local timber contractors etc.)

Let's first take a look at a skidding operation.
In an ideal world the main forest road will run along the bottom of the wood or perhaps through it with the ground conditions enabling skidder racks to run into the wood at such distances that the skidder driver will not need to pull the winch rope much more than 30yds from the tractor to reach the furthest tree after which he can start extracting from the next rack. Also there should be enough room for conversion bays on the main forest road so that once out of the wood it is only a short distance from the skidding rack to the nearest bay.

That was in an ideal world but unfortunately things rarely workout like that. The usual ( or at least a more common ) situation is one or two access points into the wood from where the contractor has to try and find a way of gaining access to all the timber to be felled. This invariably leads to severe rutting because these one or two racks are being used excessively, standing trees are badly skinned and perhaps a higher proportion of final crop trees are felled than the forester would like as the contractor trys to find a way of reaching the timber to be harvested. Also the skidder operator could well find himself pulling the rope 100yds or more from the tractor. Nothing is more soul destroying than this especially if half the trees come off the chokers and he has to get out of the tractor and pull the rope back out to get the drop offs.

So... an ideal situation for the horse and machine to work together.

With a little planning and forethought the skidder racks can be cut on firm ground and if the felling is done so that there is plenty of brash left in the rack rutting should be less of a problem. It is then upto the horse to pull the timber to these racks so the skidder can secondary extract to the landing. This saves on meandering skidder racks through the wood which means less standing trees damaged and because a rack for a horse need be only 6ft wide instead of 12ft for a tractor less final crop trees are removed which may also lessen the opportunity for windblow. To the skidder driver this means he has only to drive up the rack turn round and hook on as many trees as the tractor and ground conditions allow. A job which could take up to an hour but with using a horse to tush up it takes ten minutes, a lot less effort and increased productivity into the bargain.

I mentioned windblow earlier so lets take a site which has a high windblow probability. Normally there are three options. Leave it alone, thin and hope for the best or clear fell. I'll work on the assumption that the forest owner wants to thin but wants to lessen the chance of windblow. Whatever the main harvesting technique, motor manual with skidder extraction, motor manual shortwood with forwarder extraction, harvester and forwarder or skyline extraction the same basic principle applies. A series of parallel extraction racks running up through the wood which maybe as close as 30yds apart or perhaps even closer.

Bring in the horse! If conditions allow the racks can be up to 200yds apart which means the horse is pulling a maximum of 100yds to the nearest rack. This can be pole length with a skidder or forwarder (depending on tree size) handling secondary extraction. If conditions allow, shortwood on a small horsedrawn forwarder with secondary extraction by forwarder or perhaps even whole tree extraction with a processor working in the rack.

So, a couple of scenarios but the options are endless and maybe this page is big enough by now but I hope it has provided some food for thought.

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